Tag Archives: sleeping problems

We spend a third of our lives in bed. Ok, some of us spend more time there, some less, some are more “active” between the sheets, and some spend all this time and more actually sleeping. Yes, variations do occur (because your regular, mundane human is anything but…), but on the average – we spend one third of our lives unconscious on a horizontal surface designed to support the comatose body.

All the experts (and I use that term loosely…) agree that the average Mr. Joe Human requires 8 hours of sleep a night to maintain the health and mental acuity of the body and mind. 8 hours. Every night. Without fail. Or. Else.

Why does EVERYTHING revolve around the ability (or lack thereof) to pitch a tent on demand?

I see things a bit differently, looking from over here on the left. If sleep deprivation goes on long enough, the body throws a temper-tantrum worthy of a jilted lover: metaphysical dishes get flung about the house at high rates of speed, doors get kicked in, impolite words get spray-painted on the walls, and dubious ‘soils’ appear in the carpeting and dressers.

The family pet(s) may also be shaved without prior warning.

Sadly, divorce papers are sometimes signed, consigning the body and mind to a neat little cubicle, with softly padded walls, leather jackets that lace up the back, and rather powerful drugs injected either willingly or forcefully by attendants in white scrubs.

From Owlnet Blog on WordPress

OH…and..basket-weaving classes are mandatory for the hour they let you out of your “guest suite”…but you are allowed no pointy objects or cigarettes.

Divorcing your body is REAL expensive, both in the financial and freedom departments – so you might as well learn to live together, and that means giving in to the demands of the body, even when you, the mind, doesn’t wanna.

My body and I (specifically the muscles in the neck) are currently in negotiations – hopefully a peaceful settlement is on the horizon, as I can’t weave a basket to save my soul.

Toy snake pillow – 4th neck support bought, first one that worked.

My body missing its bed. Its favorite bed. The waterbed.

I loved that bed. It wasn’t one of the real pricey models with the baffling within the bag, or the high-gloss wood bookcase headboard with built in lights, 9 drawers underneath, multiple heaters for zoned settings, and tall enough to need a ladder to climb up in it – It was one of the cheap ones. Just a big bag of water in a box. I didn’t even spring for the headboard.

It was warm in the winter, cool in the summer. It supported everything it needed to, squishing in where it saw more weight (yea, I’m talking about my hips, here…) and less where there wasn’t as much.

Although the term ‘fathead’ is cycling through my mind right now for some reason…

It cuddled around you at night, wrapping you with all the love a water-filled bladder of vinyl could muster, and was really fun to lay on and roll around, or just push on, to get the wave effect going during the day.

You could ‘spoon’ all by yourself in a cheap waterbed…no partner required!

I REALLY miss my waterbed…sleeping platform, heater, partner and plaything all rolled up into one gigantic waterbox.

Unfortunately, the wuzband didn’t think too kindly of my favored bed. It was too hot, too cold, too wavy, translated the movement of the person sleeping next to him (that would be me, for the record…) and couldn’t be re-arranged unless you drained the thing (he was big on moving the furniture around at a whim) first. It used too much electricity, too much water, and had too much maintenance with all the burping and chemicals and special sheets one had to have for it.

They say that marriage is sleeping in a bed that’s too hard next to someone who’s sleeping in a bed that’s too soft. We went another direction – we went from someone sleeping in a perfect bed next to someone who was tolerant of it, to the opposite person sleeping in the perfect bed next to someone who absolutely could NOT get comfortable. I’d had my perfect bed, and it came time to be the one without.

I’m too tired to make the bed!

The day we got rid of the miracle of sleeping on a water-balloon and went to a traditional mattress, the sleeping issues started. I’d wake up stiff as a board. I’d wake up in the middle of the night with heartburn so violent I was gagging. Occasionally, midnight trips to the bathroom to hug Ralph would happen. The bed was too damn hard, too hot, too cold, too freaking flat. It didn’t ooze around you, cradling you in warm-water and vinyl arms – you conformed to it. Or Else. It rolled away from the wall, sneaking the pillows out from under your head in the middle of the night. It threatened bedsores if you stayed in one position too long, and turned tossing and turning into a nightly Olympic event.

I can wallpaper my room with damn gold medals…

I swear I heard it, in several occasions, giggle maniacally as I levered my poor, stiff body off it in the morning. It was a sadistic, evil piece of furniture, and he was welcome to keep it when the marriage finally ended.

So far, I’ve survived on memory foam pads piled atop a traditional matress/boxspring (bought for the SQO’s sleepovers) and my recliner. I slept in the chair for a good, solid, 2 years, with occasional bouts of horizontal-ism on the bed. When the kids moved in with me, they got the pads, and the living room, so I was confined to once again attempting to sleep on a torture rack masquerading as bedroom furniture.

My neck has finally had enough, and is threatening the big ‘D’.

Time to move the furniture around, and get my recliner in my bedroom so I have a place to sleep.